


Unlocking

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 21:16:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9844979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: For @leiascully's XFWritingChallenge Keys





	

Each step was an effort. The very act of walking away from the beach, leaving the water to lap gently in their absence, letting the birds reclaim the log, felt like a betrayal. An ending she didn’t want to begin.   
“Give me the keys, Scully.”  
“I’m fine, Mulder.”  
He stood by the driver’s side and held out his hand. She licked her lips, regarded the outline of sand around her shoes and did what he’d asked.  
He held her fingers a moment. She looked at him, his eyes wearied by grief. He’d loved her mother too.   
“Thank you,” she whispered.

He didn’t drive her to her apartment. He drove her home. The paint was still peeling away from the weatherboards, the flyscreen was still studded with rips, the steps still unsteady. But the little house wore its scars well. Inside, it was comfort, not contempt, that greeted her. The familiarity of the light filtering through the drapes that never quite met in the middle. The snagged thread in the hall rug that had run even further. The chip on the small mahogany table that held up the ugly lamp that Mulder insisted was antique. And gathered like old friends, the sofa and arm chairs welcomed her. Mulder hung her coat, made coffee the way she really liked it, sat beside her again.   
“Just like old times,” she said, smiling at him over her mug.  
“Do you want to talk some more?”  
She shook her head, sniffing back a tear. “When did we stop talking, Mulder?”  
“I don’t think we ever stopped talking, Scully. I think we just stopped sharing. We kept a little back for ourselves, locked it away. Each of us thinking that the other didn’t really understand, didn’t really need to know, probably did the same anyway…”  
Steam from his coffee curled between them. He blew at it, spreading it low over the rim of his cup.  
“What secrets did you hold onto, Mulder?”  
He chuckled softly. “None that I recall are so important now.”  
“None that you would take to your grave?” Her voice cracked, her face crumpled. Fresh tears burned her eyes.  
“Scully,” he sighed. He put his mug down. Removed hers. Pulled her to him. His breath heated the top of her hair. She moved closer, nestled under his chin. “Perhaps your mother wanted a secret to herself. Some small story that she alone could recall with vivid detail. Women like your mother, their lives revolved around their family. Perhaps this pendant represented a sort of independence for her. A reminder that she was a woman in her own right, not just a wife, a mother.”  
His heart beat against her cheek. “So I’m not supposed to unlock its secret?”  
“I think it would be like reading a diary, peeking at a present before it’s wrapped, reading the last few pages of the book. You wouldn’t want to know. You shouldn’t know. I think the least we can do is let her keep her secret.”  
She let him stroke her hair, let him drop small kisses across her forehead, let his fingers massage her arm. She let his fingers direct her chin up and let his lips find hers. She let him nuzzle her neck and tell her that he’d missed her. She let him brush her breast and let him apologise for it. She let him do it again, freely. She let him lead her to the bedroom, their bedroom.  
He was still wearing his suit and tie. She was still wearing hers. He untied it and hung it over the chair on his side.  
“If this isn’t what you want, Scully, you need to say it now. I’ll understand.”  
She unbuttoned his shirt, took a wisp of hair between her fingers, watched the way the muscles in his chest moved. She unbuttoned her own. “I want this.” She noticed the way his fingers trembled, and smiled in surprise at him. “Are you nervous, Mulder?”  
Looking away briefly, he let out a small laugh. “We’ve known each other more than twenty years and you can still reduce me to a quaking mess, Scully.”   
She let him unhook her bra. His eyes raked over her with the same wonder they always held. She felt the heat of the blush spread over her face, neck, chest. She looked down.  
“There’s a part of you that will always be locked away from me, Scully. I tried for a long time to crack your code, but it wasn’t until a long time after you left that I finally figured that you need your secrets. That they’re yours to hide away, not mine to find.”  
“Does that bother you?”  
He shook his head, rubbing a thumb over her nipple. “Not any more. I think I’m lucky that you show me anything of yourself, your true self. I would say that I’ve been luckier than most men who’ve loved you, Scully. I have seen some of those dark places of yours.”  
She rubbed the back of his hair as he suckled her breast. “I think you know me about as well as I do.”  
“I love you, Scully.” He kissed her long and deep.   
“I know.”  
She lay back in his arms and unlocked a little more of herself for him.


End file.
